It’s extremely hard to raise kids in a nice neighborhood without generational wealth
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Anonymous
I think social media has mislead younger people as to what housing was like before they were born, and what was a middle class lifestyle pre 2000. Most people in their 20s had to have roommates, and lived in small apartments, or at home at their parents house. Newly married professionals lived in small, modest apartments, until they saved enough to upgrade to a simple modest older house or a townhouse. We were 2 career professionals in the mid 90s, newly married, and lived in a tiny 2 bedroom apartment for several years, as did all out young professional friends. Nicer houses were not purchased until our mid 30s, after saving for years. |
Anonymous
Not just social media, but HGTV as well. Also, when w bought those cute little older houses, we fixed them up ourselves with paint and modest cosmetic changes until we could afford small, inexpensive kitchen fixes years later. |
Anonymous
This is the funniest possible contribution to try to negate the premise that you need generational wealth to pull off what your son and DIL pulled off. "You don't need generational wealth! Just live for five years rent free in your parents' guest house with a full kitchen, family room, and laundry room, conveniently located near your top-3%-salary duel jobs! It just takes those kind of 'good decisions,' not generational wealth!" I mean, if this is a troll it's why trolling was invented. Chef's kiss. |
Anonymous
Did you find it risky having a $1.5M mortgage on $700K HHI given your salary would likely decrease if you didn’t stay in big law / make partner? We make $700-800K early 30s but even with 20% down we are too worried about job security / getting paid this much for another 20-30 years to jump on a $2M+ home. If we had rich parents who could bail us out or the entire mortgage balance in an account where we could pay off the mortgage in case of job loss we’d do it but right now it feels too risky until we accumulate a lot more savings. |
Anonymous
We took out a huge mortgage under similar circumstances. DH was much more comfortable about it than I was. I dealt with my stress by increasing my savings to cover the new debt load. I started with the goal of having one year of expenses in my brokerage account, which I kept in cash, and I'm now continuing to save at the same rate while taking on more risk. Knowing you could cover the mortgage for several years if you need to sell due to a job change or loss is helpful. I would've preferred a modest mortgage, but marriage. |
Anonymous
NP but we had similar income early 40s (10 years ago), decided to do a $1.5m house with the expectation/acceptance that either of us could get booted from our jobs at any time. Ten years later, our combined is well over $2m, but we still always assume that in our 50s these careers and salaries could disappear into thin air, or at best a recession could make these salaries dicey, and i'd rather sleep at night knowing that i could lose my job and become a bon bon eating empty nest homemaker in my 50s if it came to it. |
Anonymous
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We bought our first home in North Arlington in 1990 for $250k. It wasn't large as McLean and Bethesda homes go, but it was handsome, had 4BRs and 2.5 baths, was an easy walk to metro, and was in a top school pyramid.
I was a junior associate in Biglaw and my spouse stayed home with the kids. I probably made $75k a year at the time. My in laws lent us 20k to cover most of the down payment and we paid them back. The Redfin estimate for the house is now $1.3 million. A second year associate now makes about $250k. So the house back then cost about three times my salary, and today would cost about five times my salary. That sums up pretty well how times have changed. |
Anonymous
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I live in Bethesda in the Whitman district in a nice 4 BR/3 BA house that we renovated top to bottom. It is worth around $1.6m. You don't need to spend $2-3m on a house.
Our first house was in Bethesda but was a tiny split level (since torn down). It was fine with 1 kid but started to feel small with 2 kids. But like some others have posted we bought what we could comfortably afford and were fine with not living in an HGTV showhouse. |
Anonymous
In 1989 the median age of a home buyer was 31 and now it’s 56. The median first time home buyer is now 40. |
Anonymous
Some of that shift is due to the population pyramid being far different than it was in 1989. Not all obviously, but a good portion. Our average age in this country is something like six years older. Which is a crazy incrase in such a short time. There aren't nearly as many young people relative to old as there used to be. |
Anonymous
We do have generational wealth and our kids have 7 figure accounts. The whole point of generation skipping and other estate plans are to not be greedy and spend all your money on oversized houses and six figure cars. It’s to pass what you can off to the next generation. We live in a similar neighborhood and were never interested in living in an expensive neighborhood. Too many people are uptight and filled with boring people in those neighborhoods . The only thing worse would be to live in a gated community that has HOA. Nightmare Nobody knows who lives where and why. Don’t worry about how people got to where they are. |
Anonymous
| I live in McLean and wouldn't have opted for McLean had it not been the shortest commute option for me. My neighbors are nice and schools are good but there are plenty of other neighborhoods offering good schools and nice neighbors. I don't understand the obsession with McLean, Bethesda etc. |
Anonymous
meh. We met in college, got married soon after graduation and had two kids by the time we were 28. Bought our first house at 23 and our 2nd inside the beltway in NOVA by age 26. Combining incomes and having parents who paid for college and cars we had for years for both of us was a huge leg up. We are now 48, careers in full swing near career peak and one kid who has graduated college and well employed and another who is mid college, starting our family early was a big bonus. |
Anonymous
| DH and I lived in apartments/rental houses until we were early 30s and had our first child. Then we bought a small townhouse. We stayed there until our kids were 10 and 12 and we moved to our first SFH in a cheaper area when we were in our mid-40s. Last year. It can still be done, it's just that you can't live in McLean while doing it. |
Anonymous
Generational wealth |